by Benny Morris
just matters of historical interest. They were critical at the time, for the Eu ropean powers were watching, and the Ottomans feared they might intervene.
In their reports the mutesarrifs, valis, and Sublime Porte tended to follow a
consistent script intended to protect the state against accusations of premed-
itation and orchestration. The massacres, these officials alleged, were triggered by specific incidents involving Christians and Muslims: a quarrel in a shop,
a murder in an alleyway. In some cases, these “events” were prob ably fictions.
In others, they were post facto rationalizations. They implied that assailants’
actions were spontaneous and, where reactive, justified. Somehow, these
one- off matters ended up producing large numbers of Armenian dead
and wounded, so officials routinely took care to deflate the number of
Christian casualties.426
Yet, in spite of Ottoman and Turkish archival purges, a substantial body of
available evidence makes clear that almost all the massacres of 1894–1896
were or ga nized by the state. Either they were unambiguously directed by Con-
stantinople, or they were ordered by local authorities executing what they
understood to be the government’s desires and intentions.427
In the wake of the September 1895 Armenian demonstration and pogrom
in Constantinople, diplomats were convinced that the government had or-
dered massacres. At the very least, the government had instructed local offi-
cials to be mindful of potential Armenian rebellion and “do what needed to
be done” in their areas, but it is probable that some governors were explic itly
instructed—by tele gram or in person by agents of the sultan or grand vizier—
to kill the members of vaguely defined rebel groups. Given Ottoman norms,
it is inconceivable that these officials would have unleashed such attacks unless they believed they were carry ing out the will of the Sublime Porte. Further
down the food chain, mobs confirmed official sanction by chanting “the state
is with us.” What ever is known about orders, official permission is obvious
in the fact that, almost invariably, perpetrators went unpunished. The blind
eye of the authorities could be as deadly as a massacre order.428
One source of ambiguity concerning responsibility for massacres lies in the
long history of Kurdish vio lence toward eastern Armenians. Were the Kurdish
The Massacres of 1894–1896
depredations of 1894–1896 simply a continuation of earlier practices, or did
they reflect a state- directed campaign of terror? The pattern points to the
second explanation. For one thing, there is evidence that the state ordered
Kurds to pillage. Speaking of the Van vilayet countryside, Hallward pointed
out, “Many Kurds have declared that they had distinct orders to plunder the
Christian villa gers.” 429
Furthermore, Kurds did not previously behave so lethally or plunder to the
extent that they did in the mid-1890s. Raiding Christian villages and extracting
tribute from them was an impor tant part of many Kurds’ livelihoods. To kill
large numbers of Armenians and take every thing they had was tantamount to
killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Devastating Armenians meant
harming Kurds, too. Something else must have instigated their irrational
choices. (For Turks, the economic motivations were more straightforward. In
July 1894, just before the first major massacres, Terrell wrote of the “unpaid
and poorly fed” Ottoman army as a factor in potential anti- Christian distur-
bances that might break out.430 Recall as well the supposed fırman authorizing
looting of Armenian property.431)
Foreign observers believed that in certain towns so- called Turkish Secret
Defense Committees— composed of officials and notables and “created under
the auspices of the central authorities”— had been formed to combat pro-
spective Armenian insurrection. There can be little doubt that such commit-
tees were active, and they may have played a part in fomenting massacres.432
Fi nally, government instigation and organ ization are clear from the unifor-
mity of the massacre pro cess and the consistent presence of state agents. Sol-
diers and gendarmes took an active part in pillage and killing across eastern
Anatolia. Consuls and missionaries called out many a vali, mutesarrif, kay-
makam, and military commander for ordering and organ izing massacres.
Even where we don’t know who exactly took the reins, the presence of a bugle
call or shot signaling troops and mobs demonstrates the or ga nized nature of
their bloody work. Foreign observers remarked on the preparedness of the
mobs. Attacks on Armenian quarters were sometimes unleashed si mul ta-
neously from several directions, indicating that the killers had strategized
beforehand. In certain places, Kurdish tribesmen were summoned from the
countryside or ordered by local officials to move into position in preparation
for massacre.433 On multiple occasions soldiers and Kurdish tribesmen were
Abdülhamid
II
seen coordinating their actions. Soldiers told missionaries, or were overheard
saying, that they had been assigned par tic u lar hours in which they were free
to slaughter or pillage. And in almost all sites, an order by a civil or military
official brought about an immediate cessation of the slaughter, indicating ef-
fective control from above.
The Role of Po liti cal Fear
In some mea sure, the massacres were inspired by Ottoman fears of potential
Armenian rebellion. Such fears were understandable. Turks and Muslim tribes
had oppressed and despoiled the Armenians of eastern and central Turkey
for de cades, helping to foment a nationalist movement that sometimes spoke
angrily and acted violently. It was only natu ral that Constantinople and pro-
vincial officials were beset by concerns— concerns they disseminated widely
in official pronouncements and the press. In 1894–1896 some Turks may have
genuinely believed that they were preempting Armenian vio lence.
As reports of real and imagined Armenian vio lence ran up and down
Ottoman chains of command, they were amplified and aggravated. Skirmishes
were turned into battles; hesitant, dissenting pastors became Svengalis of
propaganda and subversion. Recall British Consul Longworth’s account of
“wild and loose reports of Armenian atrocities committed on Moslems in the
interior.” 434 In truth the overwhelming majority of Armenians— urban and
rural, lower class and better off— refrained from challenging the state and
sought only amelioration of their condition through reform, an idea that
achieved “centre stage in 1895.” 435
Reform itself engendered fear among the Turkish masses, who worried that
Armenians and other Christians in the empire would attain po liti cal, social,
and legal equality, eating away at formal and informal Muslim control and
superiority. American diplomats later drew comparisons to the Reconstruc-
tion- era United States, in which many whites feared that former slaves were
attaining equality with, or even dominance over, the white population.436 In
the Ottoman Empire in the 1890s, the threat to the Muslim majority�
��s centu-
ries’- old supremacy seemed very real.
This perceived danger extended to the integrity and very existence of the
body- politic. Armenian activism might not end at the point of equality within a
The Massacres of 1894–1896
multiethnic state; it portended autonomy in the eastern provinces followed by
in de pen dence. This would in turn mean dissolution of the empire’s Anatolian
core. It is hardly surprising, then, that it was precisely in the six provinces
named in the 1895 reform scheme that the bulk of the massacres occurred.437
Prominent in these nightmares of imperial dismemberment were the
western, especially American, missionaries. Missionaries were accused of fo-
menting ideas of equality and in de pen dence that threatened to tear the state
apart. As one missionary reported from Sivas in early 1895,
The ever increasing discomfort, hardship, poverty and despair of the
[Muslim] people are attributed to Christian and foreign influence. The
great decline of business, and the loss of friendly commercial and social
relations between Mohammedans and Armenians is attributed to the
revolutionary spirit of the Armenians, fostered by foreign influence.
The Governors have publicly told the people that all the trou bles of
the Empire are due to the foreigners. . . . The missionaries . . . have
come to be feared and hated for the disturbing influence it is seen
education and Western ideas introduce.438
However, it is worth noting that Turkish officials, soldiers, and mobs took
great care during the massacres to avoid harming missionaries. It is likely that
orders to this effect emanated from Constantinople. True, the Turks suspected
that missionaries routinely appealed to the powers, usually through their em-
bassies, to intercede on behalf of Armenians. But if the missionaries themselves
were assaulted, the great powers might well intervene with force to protect
their nationals. In par tic u lar, the United States was viewed as an unknown,
but power ful, quantity, having previously demonstrated its naval strength
against Barbary Coast pirates in Ottoman territory.
The Role of Islam
In January 1896 Ambassador Currie met with the sultan to complain about
the massacres. He was at pains to avoid asserting religious motivations, saying,
“The religion of Mohammed was highly respected in England and that no one
attributed the crimes that had been committed to its teachings.” 439
Abdülhamid
II
This was hogwash. British diplomats, like most Western observers, under-
stood that what had happened was closely bound up with the Islamic fervor
projected from the Porte and embraced by many Turks. According to Fitzmau-
rice, Abdülhamid’s pre de ces sors, Abdülmecid and Abdülaziz, had “recognized”
the “po liti cal danger” of “fanat i cism” and had in great mea sure “rendered [it]
dormant.” But Abdülhamid “has reawakened and fomented that fanat i cism,”
spending “large sums” on “Moslem schools, medressehs, mosques and tek-
kehs [dervish lodges].” Abdülhamid’s “ whole administration” was directed, in
Fitzmaurice’s view, toward “strengthening the Moslem ele ments . . . to the
prejudice of non- Muslims.” This was obvious in the com pany the sultan kept:
“fanatics” from “Arabia, India, Af ghan i stan, Egypt . . . upon whom he lavishes large sums of money” and whom “he uses as his emissaries in furtherance of
his Pan- Islamic” goals.440
Strident religiosity spread across Ottoman lands and expressed itself in the
1890s as a visceral hatred of Christians. British Vice- Consul P. J. C. McGregor,
writing from Beirut, recounted the testimony of a Christian travelling from
Damascus to Jerusalem. Along the way, “he and his wife were constantly
stoned and insulted by the Moslem peasantry, who also made free use of
blasphemous and obscene expressions.” The British cemetery in Nablus
had been “laid waste by the Mohammedans” and used as a refuse dump. In
Palestine more generally, “The Ottoman authorities, and, at their instiga-
tion, the Mollahs, were doing their utmost to foster the growing animosity
against every thing Christian and Eu ro pe an.” 441
The situation in Asia Minor was no diff er ent. As a British diplomat put it
in 1896, Turkish Muslims were “animated with the old spirit of meting out
Islam on the sword to their Christian subjects. They believe that rayahs, whom
they have allowed to exist in their territory, are traitorously conspiring against Islam and the State and that it is their duty to their religion to extirpate
them.” 442 Mullahs and hajjis— Muslims who had made pilgrimage to Mecca—
were prominent in disseminating this hatred. In late October 1895, Fontana
reported that, in Yozgat, twenty- eight Muslims who had returned from
pilgrimage the previous year were “the chief cause for anxiety to the local
Christians owing to their fanat i cism and to influence they possess over their
Mahometan fellow townsmen.” 443
The Massacres of 1894–1896
Muslim holy days and observances tended to heighten anti- Christian sen-
timent; often, Friday prayers were followed by acts of vio lence. For instance,
on Friday January 18, 1895, when a group of hajjis returned to Yozgat, “a
Turkish rabble” marked the occasion by stoning houses belonging to Arme-
nians and Greeks, breaking “several hundred panes.” A handful of people were
injured. The crowd comprised 200–300 softas attached to the town’s ma-
drassas and was led by two hajjis.444
During the massacres, the power of religious enmity was manifest in the
desecration of Christian sites and symbols, which were par tic u lar objects of the mobs’ wrath. There was widespread and deliberate destruction of churches
and monasteries; some were converted into mosques. Christian clergymen
were singled out for torture, before being dispatched often by beheading, the
Koran- sanctioned method for killing infidels. Here and there, clerics were crucified. In Aivose (Ayvos), a village in the Harput area, the priest “was made
to mount the roof of his church and give the Mussulman call to prayer” be-
fore being murdered.445
The memoir of Abraham Hartunian, an Armenian survivor, provides a good
illustration of the nexus between Islam and massacre from the victims’ per-
spective. Hartunian was in Severek, his hometown, on November 2, 1895, the
day of the massacre. “The mob had plundered the Gregorian church, dese-
crated it, murdered all who had sought shelter there, and as a sacrifice, be-
headed the sexton on the stone threshold,” he wrote. Then rioters filled the
courtyard of the Protestant church.
The blows of an axe crashed in the church doors. The attackers rushed
in, tore the Bibles and hymnbooks to pieces, broke and shattered what-
ever they could, blasphemed the cross and, as a sign of victory, chanted
the Mohammedan prayer ‘La ilaha ill- Allah, Mohammedin Rasul- Ilah’
( There is no other God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet). We
could see and hear all these things from the room in which we hud-
dled. . . . They were coming up the stairs . . . now butchers and vic-
tims were face to face. The leader of the mob cried: ‘Muhammede sa-
lavat’ (believe in Mohammed and deny your religion). . . . Squinting
horribly, he repeated his words in a terrifying voice.
Abdülhamid
II
Then the leader “gave the order to massacre.”
The first attack was on our pastor [Mardiros Bozyakalian]. The blow of
an axe decapitated him. His blood, spurting in all directions, spattered
the walls and ceiling with red. Then I was in the midst of the butchers.
One of them drew his dagger and stabbed my left arm. . . . I lost con-
sciousness. . . . What happened to me some women who had remained
alive told me later. . . . Three blows fell on my head. My blood began to
flow like a fountain. . . . The attackers [ were] sure that I was dead. . . .
Then they slaughtered the other men in the room, took the prettier
women with them for rape, and left the other women and children there,
conforming to the command that in this massacre only men were to be
exterminated.446
Another revealing incident, unconnected to massacre, occurred at Misis
(Yakapınar), in Adana vilayet, on November 9, 1895. An Ottoman army
reserves commander brought his men into the Armenian church during ser-
vices, “tore the vestments from the priest’s back, desecrated the sanctuary,
poured out the holy oil and the sacred wafers, tore up the Bible and prayer
books, beat the priest and outraged his wife, who lived in rooms adjoining
the church. The priest afterwards sought to make complaint to the civil
authorities, but was imprisoned for slander.” 447 And Barnham wrote on
August 2, 1895, of an episode that appeared to mock Christ’s entry to Jeru-
salem on a donkey. An Armenian farmer, Aghdaz Oghlon Ibrahim, was set
upon by Muslim neighbors, who beat him, “smeared his face with filth,
placed him on a donkey facing the tail, which they made fast around his
waist with the aid of a cord.” Then “he was driven along the high road into
the town of Killis, while his tormentors ran alongside, shouting ‘This is the
re spect due to Giaours!’ ” 448
Perhaps the most obvious indication of the religious character of the Muslim
vio lence in 1894–1896 was widespread forced conversion. Tens of thousands